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Spotlights on countries 3
1
BRAZIL
Utopia or Dystopia? The Sustainable Development Goals in Brazil and in the World
Alessandra Cardoso, Grazielle Custódio David, Iara Pietricovsky de Oliveira
Instituto de Estudios Socio-económicos – Inesc
The global context
Since 2008, the world has experienced an economic crisis
of incalculable proportions, with no prospect of a
solution yet in sight. There is an extremely serious crisis
in the financial system, caused by the excessive
liberalization of capital flows and applications, which
started in the USA and spread to Europe and the rest of
the world. Its backlash in developing countries was not
less intense, even though each of these countries,
according to its own internal capacity, tried to save itself
from the announced debacle. However, it seems so far
that all countries were turned adrift.
The capitalist crisis of our times, or yet, the revival of
capitalism through this crisis (regardless of one’s
perspective) is characterized by the bankruptcy of a
development model, bankruptcy expressed in the energy,
climate and food crises, on the one hand, and by a deep
crisis in the political systems of so-called modern
democracies on the other. Something rotten is spreading
through modern bourgeois democracies, and no quick or
painless way to stop it can be envisaged.
Nation-States have been incapable of mediating the
multifarious interests of society, and are being
superseded by the interests of large economic
conglomerates. These conglomerates generally have the
strength to impose political and economic processes at
their convenience. The results of this process include the
privatization of public goods, a reduced role of the State
and public/private programmes (PPPs).
The privatization of State and multilateral institutions
are now facts.1 We are experiencing an era in which
corporations exercise unchecked power over local,
national and international governments. Such
corporations set priorities, dictate rules and exert a
strong influence on the political-economic agendas. In
short, they own the market. At the same time, they
destroy all that happens to be in their way. And so the
policies that enforce human rights, combat inequalities
and promote social justice are being ruthlessly
confronted and quickly pushed away.
Nowadays, it is common and ‘natural’ for corporations
to have a seat at UN negotiations, acting, for instance,
as advisors to the UN Secretary-General, and to actively
participate in international agreements. This practice
was consolidated in 2007 with the creation of the UN
Global Compact, whose political strength and financial
participation has increased since then.2 Meanwhile, the
reverse phenomenon has occurred in terms of
representativeness (and mandatory support) by
Member States, which have increasingly lost decision-
making capacity and power. Indeed, the UN is
becoming a captive of financial corporations and is
being subordinated to the interests and threats of the
richest countries. It is not a coincidence that the
administration of US President Trump is taking its first
steps toward promoting cuts in funding for multilateral
institutions, including the UN.
1 Barbara Adams and Jens Martens. Fit for whose purpose? Private funding and corporate influence in the United Nations. Germany/USA: Global Policy Forum, 2015.
2 Ibid., Ch. 3b, “The UN Global Compact”, p.38, chart 9.
3 Brazil
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On the political field, democratic processes are being
undermined by economicism and its logic, resulting in
unemployment, the gradual loss of rights won after
decades of struggles, and forced migrations caused by
the climate crisis and war, among others. In recent years,
the countries that experienced social-democracy after a
violent World War II and largely inspired the
democratization and incorporation of human rights in
several developing countries, have now started to
experience cuts in social rights, to promote austerity
policies, to close their own frontiers and to promote far-
reaching discrimination.
In this context, representatives of the conservative elite
worldwide are taking on the governments of their
countries through election processes that are
questionable from a democratic standpoint; these
processes include Brexit in the UK; the election of
President Trump in the USA; radical religious groups in
Turkey; liberal conservative governments in Europe; and
a succession of coups d’état in Latin America, including
countries such as Paraguay, Honduras and Brazil.
Pathways to the 2030 Agenda
In such context, what is the role of recently signed
international agreements such as Rio+20, the Paris
Agreement on Climate Change and the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, which establish a possible
international framework, as one considers the uneven
correlation of forces that is emerging from the above-
mentioned facts?
The UN Conference on Environment and Development
(the Rio de Janeiro Summit of 1992) was an important
turning point for governments regarding their
environmental policies and led its participants to a
fundamental international political agenda for the
decades that followed. It was the largest event organized
by the United Nations up to that moment, attended by
179 countries and 108 Heads of State and Government in
the city of Rio de Janeiro. It was considered to be a
success by diplomats in Brazil and worldwide, and its
results included key agreements such as Agenda 21, the
Conference of the Parties on Biological Diversity and
Climate, and the Kyoto Protocol and the provisions for its
implementation. After the 1992 Summit, several Global
Conferences took place in order to deepen and bind the
countries and their peoples with a new framework for
rights and a new logic about the meaning of
development. For this reason, the concept of
development became a point of mutual dialogue for all
themes at the summits promoted by the UN.
In the years after the 1992 Summit, the UN was still
able to inspire a de facto global sense of political trust
that allowed it to legitimately gather its member
countries for several high level international meetings
based on a human rights framework and approach.
These meetings included conferences on human rights
(in Vienna, Austria), social development (Copenhagen,
Denmark), population and development (Cairo, Egypt),
the condition of women (Beijing, China) and urban
issues and development (Istanbul, Turkey). In the early
2000s, topics such as racism, intolerance and
discrimination entered the agenda of the Durban
Conference in South Africa, and the structural theme of
funding for development entered the agenda of the
Monterrey Conference in Mexico. We refer to this
period as the Social Cycle of the United Nations.
A favourable political environment was noticeable
during that cycle – as long as discussions on who would
pay for the transitions between different development
models were kept off the table. This was indeed one of
the issues that blocked all negotiations, restructured
institutions and redefined the actors who make
decisions at the international forums. The international
institutions are still the same, but a power shift has
taken place.
The ‘fatigue of the international system’3 was
evidenced in 2000 as the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) were launched, along with the beginning
of a new conference review cycle. The UN started to
lose political power and legitimacy as an institution.
This fact became noticeable over time due to the low
level of government commitment and to the lack of
investment by the system itself which would enable its
negotiations to reach effective results. The financial
crisis of the traditional governance system contributed
to weakening its activities even further.
Spotlights on countries 3
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Since then, both the UN System and its Member States
represented have gradually lost their strength and
vigour. With this process underway, their agreements
and treaties became more and more a matter of
discourse, with few being effectively implemented. As a
result of this situation, which is referred to as ‘summit
fatigue’, an entire process was left in a state of risk that
was reflected in the presentation of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) in the year 2000.
The MDGs were interpreted by social movements and
global civil society organizations3 as a dramatic cutback
in all that had been already achieved in terms of
agreements and consensus at UN summits. The debates
of almost a decade were reduced to eight goals4 and
several problematic issues related to their ethical
aspects, implementation and definition of
responsibilities. The lack of consensus about who would
pay for the bill, along with legitimacy and funding crises,
had the effect of obstructing progress in relation to what
had been previously debated, negotiated and agreed.
Since that time, the world has endured all types of
economic crises, starting in Southeast Asia and including
the economies in transition in Latin America (Mexico,
Brazil and Argentina) and, more recently, the developed
countries themselves. Since the outset of these
conferences, several social movements and civil society
analysts – among them the Social Watch network – drew
attention to the urgent need for a new international
financial architecture, a new governance system and
increased social responsibility by the Bretton Woods
institutions and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
These movements and analysts warned about the need to
assess the social and environmental impacts of
liberalizing investments in all corners of the planet, and
about how essential it is to seek new development
models based on sustainability, on a departure from the
neoliberal economic orthodoxy and on tackling socio-
environmental issues and the challenge of feeding the
3 Átila Roque and Sonia Corrêa. “Das Cúpulas às bases: Cenário internacional.” In Social Watch, Observatório da Cidadania nº 4, 2000, available at: http://www.socialwatch.org/nod11315.
4 See the collection of reports produced by Social Watch, available at http:/www.socialwatch.org.
world population.
Issues such as poverty, inequality, foreign debt, official
development assistance (ODA), the need for a new
financial architecture, sustainable development and a
new governance system, which are always a part of the
vocabulary of social movements and civil society
organizations, have not met with an effective response,
in part due to the fact that the UN did not have the
necessary political strength to reverse international
economic and financial decisions. Global policies
started to be defined by the richest countries of the
world in the G8 and at the World Economic Forum, and
were later elaborated and implemented by the
international financial institutions and the WTO. As the
economic crisis severely hit the G8 countries, the
world’s governance system underwent some changes
and a number of developing countries were summoned
to this restricted group, to meet as the G20. This is one
of the new configurations that have taken shape in the
world since the financial crisis of 2008. However, none
of its features is directly concerned with strengthening
the multilateral system spearheaded by the UN. This
movement has a new governance format, and new
authors are now exercising power.
The weakening of the UN and its Member States by the
impacts of a triple (economic, environmental and food)
crisis led governments to seek answers to their
economic difficulties from large transnational
corporations. In turn, transnational corporations
(globally known as TNCs) have sought mechanisms in
different states to overcome their own problems – and
many of them have been saved with public money after
the 2008 crisis. Fragile multilateral institutions, in
particular the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are
now being rebuilt to act as the authors of this new era
of financial capitalism, and to stimulate what seems to
be the keynote of a new global governance, namely
public-private partnerships (PPPs). The view that was
rehearsed so frequently in the past is now becoming a
palpable reality: globalization has given prominence to
large financial and industrial corporations, by
prioritizing a market-based perspective according to
which national and international crises can be solved
with the aid of economic leviathans.
3 Brazil
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However, to secure the hegemony of this privatization
process for the multilateral system and for nation-states,
it was necessary to change the previous framework of
legally constituted rights. Since World War II, progress
on human rights has been attained with the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, followed by the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR), and, in particular, by the Social Cycle of
UN conferences, which defined new generations of rights
and encompassed economic, social, environmental and
cultural rights, not only individual rights but also
collective rights. It was thus crucial that new instruments
be created so that transnational corporations could
effectively exert influence and change global decisions
and processes that were previously based on this far-
reaching progress in terms of human rights.
At that point, the UN Global Compact5 was created with
the role of providing advice to the UN both under the
leadership of former Secretary-Generals Kofi Annan and
Ban Ki Moon, and also to the current UN Secretary-
General António Guterres, from Portugal. The Global
Compact took up the environmental agenda renewed at
the Rio+20 Conference, along with all post-2015
discussions. It presents itself as a solution for the global
problems of poverty and the climate crisis, by resorting
to new types of technologies and funding options, and it
defends new political and economic governance models
via PPPs.
The 2012 report of the Global Economic Forum stated –
and this is the guideline that has been followed since
then – that the governance system of the future will be
better administered by coalitions of multinational
corporations, governments and a select group of non-
governmental organizations.
According to data from the World Bank and Fortune
Magazine, 110 of the 175 largest global economic entities
in 2011 were corporations, with the corporate sector
representing a clear majority (over 60%). The revenues
of mega-corporations Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil
and Walmart were larger than the GDP of 110 national
5 Available at: http://unglobalcompact.org/Languages/portuguese.
economies, or more than half the world’s countries.
The revenues of Royal Dutch Shell, for instance, were
on par with the GDP of Norway and dwarfed the GDP of
Thailand, Denmark or Venezuela.6 Such a situation
leads to an amazing unbalance in the global power
system and reveals the unambiguous power of these
corporations in the world and in political decision-
making spaces.
Currently, power is highly concentrated in the private
sector, which starts to drive multilateral processes and
to redefine and modify previously agreed concepts.
This fact became evident at the Rio+20 conference in
2012 with the introduction of concepts such as the
“green economy” and the attempt to eliminate the
concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities”
(CBDR), which is a crucial notion for securing different
levels of responsibilities among countries in efforts to
combat environmental, climate and social imbalances.
Such modifications already showed that a market-
based view would win the dispute about the meaning
of “development” and its possible paths and
mechanisms. For instance, the CBDR mechanism lost
one of its ‘legs’, so to speak, in this new international
moment, and we now face the risk that precisely those
countries that have the least responsibility for the deep
global climate crisis of the present will be the ones
most penalized.
In this context, one of the main challenges that
permeate the construction of the 2030 Agenda is the
dilution of public power, both nationally and
multilaterally. One of the facets of such dilution is
contained in the proposals for PPPs, which are based
on a narrow view of economic growth and on market
solutions for sustainable development, thus
depoliticizing the causes of poverty, inequality,
environmental imbalance and the climate crisis.
PPPs also open business entry points for corporations
that hold global power: extractive industries, cutting-
edge technologies, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and
food and drink industries. These companies do not act
6 Lou Pingeot, “Corporate influence in the Post-2015 process”, Global Policy Forum, January 2014.
Spotlights on countries 3
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in a way to promote sustainable development, but
actually oppose it, since their aim is profit, instead of
sustainability, and since they seek short-term gains,
instead of thinking about the survival of the planet in the
long run. The state’s power of mediation ends up
affected, while its legitimacy is attacked, causing huge
damage to human rights, since the state is the actor that
has the power and the legitimacy to enforce these rights
for its population.
The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs)
While recognizing that the global agenda is largely
caught in the grips of private conglomerates, it is still
important to underscore that this agenda is crucial for
the ongoing efforts to cope with the serious civilizational
and environmental crisis we are facing today.
Despite their problems and shortcomings, the processes
triggered between the 1992 Rio Summit and the 2012
Rio+20 Conference led to an international framework
that contributed to the construction of consensus by
Nation States around some civilizational values and the
protection of rights, which cannot be disregarded. The
key results of this process were the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), the Conferences of the Parties on
Biodiversity and Climate Change, and the 2030 Agenda.
The 2030 Agenda is the product of a multilateral effort to
construct a possible agreement among UN Member States
on sustainable development goals and targets, although
some weaknesses can be pointed at in its concept and
agreement. It is structured around 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), 169 targets and 230 global
indicators.
In spite of the fact that the UN and some governments
sought to expand discussions on the 2030 Agenda with
civil society participation via new communication
technologies and open data tools, the present moment
is characterized by a bottleneck, in which final
decisions do not reflect the participation of actors
invited to the global debates, and final texts do not
reflect the main demands and concerns expressed by
the organizations and citizens who were called to
contribute their opinions.
However, it must be recognized that the SDGs still
represent progress in terms of commitment by UN
Member States, since it fosters the implementation of
wide-scope policies. Without them, the countries would
not meet their chartered objectives.
Yet, even acknowledging the importance of these 17
Goals and 169 targets as an agenda for the present and
the future, as we consider the magnitude of the crises
mentioned above, it will not be easy for UN Member
States to implement them. The current spaces of power
(i.e., states) lack the necessary financial and political
capacity to enable implementation to take place.
Moreover, the possible mechanisms for funding these
Goals are even less clear. It will be difficult for the
SDGs to thrive, inasmuch as they call for progressively
funded and non-discriminatory policies. For this same
reason, the implementation of human rights to
promote justice in all areas, provided by Article 2 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), has never been achieved.
These 17 Goals and 169 targets have only become
landmarks for the exercise of our utopias. In the real
world, we observe the facts of retrogression,
authoritarianism, fascism and extremism in a society
of classes in which 1 percent of all individuals have
access to well-being, technologies, health, education
and employment, while the remaining 99 percent must
face the hard facts of unemployment and
discouragement. Such a system oppresses, discards and
corrodes our planet and its inhabitants.
3 Brazil
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It is important, therefore, to look at the Brazilian
situation and ask: In the present political and
economic context, will Brazil be capable to fulfill the
commitments established by the 2030 Agenda?
The Brazilian situation
After a period of 27 years without political coups, Brazil
recently experienced a new democratic disruption.
According to philosopher José Antônio Moroni, member
of the Executive Board of the Institute of Socioeconomic
Studies (INESC),7 a political process took place in which
some state institutions, political parties, mass-media
outlets, churches, entrepreneurial sectors and ‘street
movements’ forced the impeachment of former president
Dilma Rousseff without the sufficient and necessary legal
grounds.
The political arrangement that led to such a break with
the democratic order included the imposition of an ultra-
neoliberal agenda that violates and destroys hard-won
rights and social policies. The new heads of the Executive
Branch, along with their strong base in the National
Congress – forged via corrupt practices and the co-
optation of political representatives and the Judiciary –
quickly implemented a deconstruction of the already
fragile democratic Rule of Law that emerged after the
end of the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985).
The first ‘package’ delivered to the economic-financial
elite that stood behind this coup was the approval of the
so-called ‘cap amendment, Constitutional Amendment 95,
which established a freeze of primary expenses in real
terms for 20 years.
Several political and economic analysts, social
movements, NGOs and activists unanimously agreed in
their assessments of the deep retrogression that the
enactment of this Constitutional Amendment will
produce in terms of rights. Popular reactions against it
were also expressive, but they were blatantly ignored by
the mass media and were stifled by police repression.
7 Interview with Le Monde Diplomatique, 27 April 2017. Available at: http://www.inesc.org.br/noticias/ noticias-gerais/2017/abril/a-desconstituicao-etica-moral-cultural-e-institucional-do-estado.
This cycle of neoliberal reforms has advanced rapidly.
The deterioration of work conditions and cuts in labour
costs as solutions for resuming the accumulation of
capital were secured through the quick approval of a
legislative project that authorized outsourcing as a
practice for all sectors and categories, which represents
a deep loss of labour guarantees.
The next reform of the neoliberal agenda will tackle
Social Security, which has become a key piece in the
strategy to constrict the role of the state and extirpate
rights in Brazil. These reforms parallel other reforms
currently in progress in the environmental area, which
include provisions to render the environmental
licensing process more flexible, review the policy that
recognizes and secures Indigenous lands (to avoid
additional demarcations), deconstruct the national
policy of protected areas, increase flexibility and
stimulate access to mineral resources, and expand land
entitlement rights by foreigners, among other
measures. All these reforms profess the same logic: to
extend the spaces of accumulation through greater
access to and appropriation of the country’s natural
resources.
Privatization and the unchecked dissemination of PPPs
became the third element of Brazil’s new agenda. To
proceed in this path, the Temer administration issued
Provisional Measure 727/2016 and institutionalized the
Investment Partnerships Programme (PPI). PM 727 was
the second measure adopted by the current
administration, and it was issued even before the end
of President Rousseff’s ‘impeachment’ process.
The combined and intensified effects of such reforms,
budgetary cuts and privatization processes can be
traced back to a clear logic: on the one hand, to reduce
to a minimum the role of the state, both as a guarantor
of rights and a regulator of capital; and, on the other, to
reduce to a minimum the costs and provide
opportunities so that capital may resume its
accumulative trajectory in Brazil.
Spotlights on countries 3
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In such context, the hard-won universal welfare policies
secured by the 1988 Constitution, such as education and
social security, are being dismantled not only as a way of
cutting social expenses, but also to provide new business
opportunities and create the space to enable economic
groups to take hold of a considerable health and
education market.
At the same time, under the guise of fiscal adjustment,
the few policies that still strive to break with Brazil’s
historical inequalities and combat the country’s
shameful situation of poverty are being either cut,
eliminated or changed for the worse. Thus the ongoing
processes that seek to realize rights are being cut,
whereas those public institutions and policies that
worked to recognize the rights of historically rejected
and invisible populations are being dismantled.
It is in such a complex scenario, as we seem to face a
long path of consequences and resistance, that the
SDGs are starting to be implemented in Brazil.
And bearing this context in mind, it is indeed likely
that Brazil will not be capable of adequately
implementing the SDGs. Let us now take a closer look
at this possibility in the light of the current process of
deconstruction of the country’s already fragile welfare
state.
Brazil’s implementation of the SDGs
The implementation of the SDGs in Brazil is
coordinated by the Governmental Secretariat of the
Presidency of the Republic (SEGOV). Furthermore,
Decree 8,892 of October 2016 created a National SDG
Commission headed by SEGOV, as a collegiate and joint
consultative body with the attribution of “supervising,
internalizing, interiorizing and disseminating the
execution of the 2030 Agenda”. The composition of
SEGOV’s civil society members was defined on 4 April
2017 to include two members from the entrepreneurial
sector, two members from NGOs, one member from
unions and one member from social movements and
the government.
Since before the impeachment of President Rousseff,
the government sought to render the SDGs and their
targets compatible with its medium-term planning
defined by the Brazilian Multi-Year Governmental Plan
(PPA), which covers a four-year span. The PPA is the
basis of the Brazilian Annual Budget and is not only the
main reference for other national and sectorial plans,
but is also, to a large extent, an expression of these
plans.
The PPI and Public-Private Partnerships
The PPI is an initiative by which the Brazilian federal
administration is trying to shun its duties. It is an
attempt to tread a path of no return in a privatization
process with incalculable damage to Brazilian society.
Behind its neoliberal project stands the vision that it is
not a task of the state to invest in basic sectors such as
sanitation, along with the fallacy that such resources
are essential for attaining fiscal balance. Brazil’s recent
past has demonstrated that privatizations do not solve
the country’s fiscal problem, and that often, the bill and
damage for citizens are too high.
As during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso
administration (1995-2002), the National Economic and
Social Development Bank (BNDES) is the institution
responsible for implementing the PPI. The BNDES plays
the strategic role of providing long-term funding based
the notion of support to strategic sectors for
development, but now its main mission is reduced to
structuring privatization and concession projects under
the PPI, which favours financial investors.
With the rationale of promoting new projects, which
will emerge in the form of concessions, the government
has cut environmental and human rights standards and
guarantees by ordering public bodies to accelerate
licensing processes for large works and projects.
It is in this context of ‘producing a favourable business
environment’ that the federal government is preparing
a project to review its licensing processes and regulate
what the PPI already does: to clear away any ‘hurdles’
(namely social, environmental, cultural and labour
rights) that may either postpone or affect the
profitability expected by investors.
3 Brazil
8
The PPA 2016-2019 is structured around 54 programmes
organized by theme, and encompasses a total of 562
indicators and 1,132 goals.
The current PPA emerged during the Rousseff
administration to organize Brazil’s public policies and
their sectors. The construction of many of these policies,
particularly the ones linked to the SDGs, is based on
social participation processes via Public Policy
Conferences and Councils, among other participative
methods, demands and political struggles.
In this regard, and indeed as the current administration
affirms it, a good path for implementing the SDGs is to
identify their linkages with the PPA, since the PPA is the
legal and institutional document that sets the
governmental commitments and covers the execution of
public policies, including the indicators and goals that
oftentimes are closely aligned with the SDGs.
By means of illustration, we highlight three goals that
connect the SDGs and the PPA:8
1. One of the targets under SDG 1 – End poverty in all
forms everywhere – is to “implement nationally
appropriate social protection systems and measures
for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve
substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable” .
The attainment of this goal and the target is clearly
linked to PPA programmes such as “Bolsa Família”
(Family Stipend), “Previdência Social” (Social
Security) and “Consolidação do Sistema Único de
Assistência Social” (Consolidation of the Unified
Social Assistance System).
2. One of the targets under SDG 5 – Achieve gender
equality and empower all women and girls – is to
“eliminate all forms of violence against all women
and girls in the public and private spheres, including
trafficking and sexual and other types of
exploitation”. The attainment of this goal and the
target depends on the execution of women’s policies,
particularly by a PPA programme called “Promotion
of Equality and Combat to Violence”.
8 http://www.agenda2030.com.br/consulta.php
3. One of the targets under SDG 15 – Sustainably
manage forests, combat desertification, halt and
reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss
– is “by 2020, promote the implementation of
sustainable management of all types of forests, halt
deforestation, restore degraded forests and
substantially increase afforestation and
reforestation globally”. The policies covered by
PPA 2016-2019 under the responsibility of the
Ministry of the Environment (MMA) and other
bodies linked to it (Chico Mendes Institute, IBAMA
and Brazil’s Forest Service, among others), and the
policies for Indigenous peoples under the
responsibility of the National Foundation for
Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI) are essential elements
in order to attain this SDG and most of its targets.
The underlying issue, therefore, does not regard the
inability of public policies and institutions of the
Executive Branch to carry out and meet the SDGs.
Instead, it regards a political-budgetary matter and is
linked to the current government’s deep lack of
political commitment with adequate funding via public
policies defined by the PPA, which are also part of the
SDGs.
Such lack of commitment, in turn, is a result of Brazil’s
current economic and fiscal policies, and of an attempt
to dismantle the democratic Rule of Law. In this
context, the implementation of most, not to say all,
policies contained in the PPA – which are fundamental
to attaining the SDGs – is becoming severely
compromised, as the following lines will show.
Constitutional Amendment 95 and its effects on the
SDGs
Constitutional Amendment 95 (EC 95), approved in
December 2016, establishes a freeze of primary
expenses by the federal government in real terms for
20 years, producing a deep change in the current fiscal
regime. EC 95 entered into force in 2017, and its
essence is the role of limiting expenses for public
policies and social programmes in order to direct
resources for debt repayment, thus setting a priority on
the financial system, and not in Brazilian citizens.
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The decision to compromise the public budget and direct
its resources to financial expenses is deeply linked to
Brazil’s high interest rates – as a matter of fact, the
highest rates of the world – and also results in high debt
costs. The financial expenses related to internal and
external debt, along with their interest rates,
experienced a 46 percent increase between 2016 and
2017, amounting to a leap from R$381 billion to R$557
billion.
In the course of one single year (from 2016 to 2017), the
financial expenses’ share (interest rates, amortization
and refunding) in the Budget of the Union increased
from 45 percent to 53 percent, and reached R$1.85
trillion in 2017. This means an increase of R$645 billion.
Meanwhile, the freeze on primary expenses resulted in a
cost reduction in relative terms and reduced their share
of budgetary resources. While financial expenses and
their share increased in 2016-2017, the share of primary
expenses was cut by 14 percent in the same period.
The question emerges: from the perspective of the SDGs
and of Brazil’s Multi-Year Plan, which policies are being
sacrificed to secure the expenses cap and the use of
additional resources to pay for the exceedingly high
interest rates of the public debt? The answer is: almost
all policies.
Almost all policies experienced cuts in their budgetary
functions in 2017. Although EC 95 does not set specific
limits by budgetary function, institution or programme,
data from INESC9 shows that the functions, bodies and
programmes closest to the most vulnerable and least
powerful segments of the population vis-à-vis the state
and its structures are the ones that lost the most.
From all functions in the Budget of the Union,
“Citizenship Rights” is the one that experienced the most
drastic cut: 37.1 percent, as its resources were cut from
R$2.6 billion in 2016 to R$1.6 billion in 2017.
9 http://www.inesc.org.br/noticias/noticias-do-inesc/2017/marco/orcamento-2017-prova-teto-dos-gastos-achata-despesas-sociais-e-beneficia-sistema-financeiro
A striking case among the current Budgetary Functions
is that of programme “Policies for Women: Tackling
Violence and Fostering Autonomy”, which experienced
a budgetary cut of 52 percent. It is this programme that
secures, for instance, assistance to women in situations
of violence. In only one year, this programme
experienced a budgetary cut of R$5.5 million.
How will SDG 5 on gender equality and its targets be
implemented in a context of such radical budgetary
cuts? It is important to highlight that the governmental
body in charge of carrying out gender policies, namely
the Secretariat for Women’s Policies, was dismantled
and subsumed to the Ministry of Justice, and is not at
all a priority for the current administration.
Another important budgetary function for promoting
rights is “Social Assistance”, which experienced a 5
percent cut. Specifically, its budget was cut from R$87
billion in 2016 to R$83 billion in 2017. Such a decrease
considerably restricts Brazil’s ability to attain SDG 1
and eradicate poverty.
There are other examples of how EC 95 will
compromise the ability of the state to execute its Multi-
Year Plan 2016-2019, and thus the SDGs. But it is still
important to evince other constraints on Brazil’s
capacity to execute its budget. Taken as a set of factors,
these constraints are quickly wrecking the Brazilian
Constitution itself and the policies that were structured
in the democratic period that ended with the
impeachment of President Rousseff.
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Contingency restrictions and their effects for the SDGs
In addition to the primary expense cuts that resulted
from EC 95, and amidst the worst economic crisis in the
history of the country, with high unemployment rates
and fast increasing poverty and inequalities levels, in
late March 2017 the federal government issued Decree
9018 establishing a R$42.1 billion cut in the federal
administration’s budget.
Decree 9018 disallows some public expenses that could
avoid the loss of rights and promote an economic
recovery for the country. The contingency restrictions
linked to it are publicized by the government and some
mass-media outlets as a bitter medication for a situation
of fiscal crisis, but they are a tailor-made fit for the
administration’s lack of commitment to securing citizen
rights, and, as a consequence, to the SDGs.
As the following table shows, the budgetary cuts in 2017
total R$42.1 billion. These cuts were made in the
discretionary expenditures of every agency and body,
while their mandatory expenses, such as salaries, are
preserved. However, to execute policies, it is not enough
to count the employees of each institution, they must also
have the appropriate resources to afford rents,
electricity, telephone services, equipment purchases,
gasoline, and the necessary structure for issuing public
calls and carrying out their services and initiatives,
among other expenses.
Discretionary expenses guarantee the execution of a
large number of policies in fields such as affirmative
action and combatting race inequalities, Indigenous and
Quilombola communities, women, youth, elders,
environmental preservation, higher education policies,
health vigilance and pharmaceutical assistance, among
many others. The practical effects of contingency cuts
such as these will be particularly felt, therefore, by the
poorest segments of the population, which are precisely
the ones that most need the presence of the state.
A striking example of the current dismantling of
Brazilian public policies can be seen in the new
budgetary restrictions on the Ministry of the
Environment (MMA), which has experienced a cut of 51
percent in its resources for discretionary expenses.
What is the meaning of such 51 percent-cut in the
discretionary resources of this ministry?
The authorized budget for the MMA in 2017 is on the
order of R$3.9 billion. This sum is shared among the
MMA and seven other budgetary units: IBAMA, the
Brazilian Forest Service, the Chico Mendes Institute
(ICMBio), the National Water Agency (ANA), the
National Fund for the Environment (FNMA), the
National Climate Change Fund (FNMC), and the
Research Institute of the Botanical Garden of Rio de
Janeiro (IPJBRJ).
Spotlights on countries 3
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The Chico Mendes Institute, for instance, counts with an
authorized budget of R$1.2 billion. 25 percent of this
sum, that is, R$316 million, is linked to expenses that
may be cut due to contingency restrictions. The costs that
cannot be cut are basically personnel costs. In other
words, the MMA already has a small budget that is
insufficient for executing its policies and managing
protected areas. However, these tasks play a key role in
the preservation of biodiversity and reduction of
deforestation levels, both of which are targets linked to
SDG 15.
The ICMBio budget is utterly insufficient to secure its
mission. The freeze of resources enacted by EC 95 and
contingency cuts currently underway will severely
jeopardize the ICMBio efforts, as well as those of the
MMA as a whole.
Social Security reform and its effects for the SDGs
AT present, the General Social Security Regime (RGPS)
and the Social Assistance Service are responsible for
providing benefits to 33.5 million Brazilians, most of
whom (23 million) receive a benefit equal or below the
minimum wage (R$937, roughly US$297 in early May
2017). In rural areas, and under the Continuous Social
Assistance Benefit (BPC), practically 100 percent of all
beneficiaries receive the minimum wage floor; in urban
areas, minimum wage benefits correspond to 56.7
percent of all beneficiaries. Contrary to the view
currently in vogue, the values of RGPS and Social
Assistance benefits are relatively low, that is, they closely
follow the minimum wage value, and they represent a
basic income shield against poverty.
In 2015, the RGPS assisted 28.3 million direct
beneficiaries. According to the Brazilian Institute of
Geography and Statistics (IBGE), each direct beneficiary
assists 2.5 indirect beneficiaries (family members).
Therefore, the RGPS assists approximately 99 million
persons, or almost half of the Brazilian population.
This means that restrictive policies or polices with an
effect of precluding access to retirement benefits could
push up to half of the Brazilian population into
situations of risk and extreme poverty. They could also
have an effect of restricting the consumption capacity
of half of the country’s population, with an impact on
the Brazilian economy and in the national capacity to
raise domestic revenues and fund development, against
the commitments that were made by many countries,
including Brazil.
The current Social Security reform proposal also
purports to gradually increase the minimum eligibility
age for BPC from 65 to 70 years. This important social
protection mechanism currently assists 4.5 million
people and secures a monthly citizen income
equivalent to the minimum wage for senior citizens
(aged 65 or more) and persons with disabilities and a
monthly family income below a quarter of the
minimum wage. The BPC is therefore a protection for
all persons who live in a situation of extreme poverty
and are incapable of securing their survival via paid
work, either due to their advanced age or to limitations
in connection with disabilities.
Due to their broad coverage among the elderly
population, the RGPS and BPC benefits expanded the
income guarantee for over 80 percent of all senior
citizens, thus reducing poverty in their age group. In
2014, only 8.76 percent of all persons aged 65 or older
were living with an income below or equal to half the
minimum wage – a datum that shows how poverty is
virtually residual in the senior age group in Brazil. If
Social Security and the BPC ceased to exist (as proposed
by the Social Security reform of EC 287), the percentage
of poor senior citizens at age 75 would surpass 65
percent of the entire elderly population.10 The
discontinuance of these two important benefits would
prevent the attainment of SDG 1 and the eradication of
poverty.
10 Previdência: reformar para excluir? Contribuição técnica ao debate sobre a reforma da previdência social brasileira. Brasilia: ANFIP/DIEESE, 2017, 212p.
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Final remarks
In a few words, it will not be possible to implement the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Brazil. This sad
prospect is a consequence of the lack of the necessary
budgetary allocations, resulting from the current
austerity policies of the Temer administration. Such
policies establish a cap for social expenses and promote
budgetary cuts of over 50 percent in many governmental
bodies, along with other reforms that lead to social
exclusion, increase inequalities and relinquish the
national wealth via privatization processes.
The current positions expressed by Brazil at UN meetings
demonstrate these facts: 1) Brazil has voted against the
drafting of a report on the effects of austerity measures
for human rights at a meeting of the Human Rights
Commission in March 2017; and 2) Brazil did not
support the draft text containing fiscal justice
suggestions for attaining women’s rights at the 61st
session of the Commission on the Status of Women in
March 2017.
We are facing an imposed and illegitimate Brazilian
government that promotes actions and sets up
makeshift devices on behalf of the SDGs to justify its
commitments internationally, while it is rendering
these same SDGs unattainable as a result of its political
and economic decisions. We are indeed facing dark
times in the present and in our prospects of a future for
Brazil, for the region and globally. In this context, the
SDGs are a minimum reference – with a rugged path
ahead.